Thursday, July 26, 2012

Signs of Desperation




What’s New Today

Story #1 looks at the enthusiasm gap.  It seems the democrats have lost 22% since 2008 while the Republicans are up 16%.  #2 looks at Obama campaign strategy which is to depress Romney’s turnout.  I thought the Democrats thought everyone should vote. #3 is a story with our new feature—Signs of Desperation.  I’ll keep them coming. #4 asks if “You didn’t build that” is the end of Obama’s presidency.  #5 looks at the concept of “fair share.”  I guess it’s like Bill Clinton said about the word is.  It depends what your definition of “is” is.  #6 shows you what fascism looks like without the jackboots.


Today’s Thoughts

President Obama from March 2011: "In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans.”  At least he admits that not renewing the Bush Tax Cuts is a tax hike. 
 
Obama’s biggest problem for reelection is that the segments of society that have been hurt the most in his term were his biggest supporters in 2008. These include minorities (unemployment in the black community 14.4%; Hispanics 11.0%), young people (unemployment: 18.0%) and single women.
Obama’s latest ad telling people he was quoted out of context about “You didn’t build it,” remind me of another Democratic President who told us, “I did not have sex with that woman.” 

In an interview on BET last September Obama answered a question about why he didn’t create more policies specifically targeted at African Americans: ‘That’s not how America works,’ the president replied.  It appears that isn’t how America works in a non-election year.  In an election year apparently everything works differently as NBC is reporting he will sign an executive order that will create a special new federal office aimed at improving education for African Americans.


1.  Democratic enthusiasm falls off a cliff

Democrats are far less enthusiastic about the 2012 election than they were in 2004 and 2008, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.

A Gallup/USA Today poll found that only 39 percent of Democrats now say they are “more enthusiastic than usual” about the 2012 election. That’s down from 68 percent in 2004 and 61 in 2008.

Republicans, conversely, have seen a sharp rise since 2008, when only 35 percent said they were “more enthusiastic than usual.” In the latest survey, 51 percent said they were enthusiastic about the upcoming election, a 12-point advantage over the Democrats…

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/240069-poll-democratic-enthusiasm-falls-sharply

With a 22% drop in enthusiasm, the Democrats and Obama face a bleak November.  Obama’s strategy to smear Romney doesn’t seem to be working as enthusiasm for Romney is off just 2 points while for Obama it is off 6 points since February.  It appears when you sling mud you get muddy yourself. 

2.  Obama seeks to suppress voter turnout

….The key to the election, therefore, rests with the ability of the Obama campaign to discourage those now predisposed to vote for Romney because of the economy or disappointment with Obama.   Thus the never-ending message over the past two months from the Obama re-election team that Romney is dishonest, unethical, cares only for the rich, outsources jobs, perhaps is a felon, has off shore bank accounts ostensibly to hide money and, as he must have skeletons in his past, he refuses to release his tax returns.
While the polling results to date have not shown any real movement as a result of this scorched earth campaign, it has succeeded in maintaining the status quo.  However, if this were any other time in America's recent past, with similar economic circumstances, Barack Obama would be down by double digits among likely voters in any presidential preference poll…. 

…Mitt Romney is not the first choice of many on the right, but then many on this side of the political spectrum have already surrendered to the idea that it is either too late to save America or there is no real difference in the candidates or Romney isn't a pure "constitutional conservative--so why bother to vote.  They often fall back on various misinterpreted statistics to back-up this defeatist attitude.

First fallacy: a majority of the American people are now dependent on government, so they will always vote for whoever promises to support them.   … this is not a monolithic voting bloc as a recent survey  indicated a majority of federal government employees would vote against Obama.
Second fallacy: nearly 47% of Americans do not pay any income tax so they do not care about raising taxes or spending and will always vote for the Democrats….  When factoring in payroll taxes, 86% of all Americans pay taxes.  All citizens therefore need jobs and economic growth, not higher taxes, unlike the policies being pursued by Barack Obama.  

Third fallacy: there has been such an increase in voter fraud my vote really doesn't matter.  Today, there are approximately 207 million Americans eligible to vote.  Less than 150 million or 70% are registered to vote.  In the 2008 election 146 million were registered to vote (71% of eligible voters); 131 million voted in the presidential election. 

Recent polls continue to show that 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservative; only 21% as liberal.  Of the remaining 39% who identify as moderate, it would be safe to assume that these citizens are equally split between the two ideologies, thus at least 60% of Americans lean conservative and 40% liberal.  Accordingly, any substantive additional turnout, registration and voting would be skewed toward electing the more conservative candidate.  Additionally, any attempt at voter fraud would be overwhelmed by these higher numbers.

The Obama re-election team knows it is vital to suppress the turnout and enthusiasm for Mitt Romney. .. 


The Democrats fight voter ID saying it would suppress voter turnout even as Obama does everything he can to suppress Romney’s voters from turning out.

3.  Signs of desperation

Some of you may be saying that spending $15 million is no big deal given that this is a presidential election. You are mistaken. This is an obscene, over-the-top amount of money. Obama faces only about 12 to 15 electorates that are worthy of sampling separately. There is the national electorate, and then there are the individual electorates of swing states, and then there are special targets like his partisan base of Democrats and swing voters like independents. Even if he polled each of these sub-samples every week since the first of the year, he couldn’t come close to accounting for the amount that’s supposedly been spent.

Just by normal ratios or rules of thumb for campaign spending, the research outlays are out of whack. For presidential campaigns, polling should fall into a range of 3 to 4 percent of the total budget. In this case, the percentage is much higher. It is being reported that the Obama campaign has spent $100 million thus far on campaign ads. If they have, in fact, spent $15 million researching those ads, they are genuinely out of control over at the Democratic “research institute” where all this political science is percolating.

It’s interesting to try and follow the money, but it’s also disturbing. Why must Obama spend so much money to find his way? Voters are likely to be turned off to realize that even a teleprompter is not enough for this president. He also needs a phalanx of pollsters to tell him what to say.


There are many signs of desperation.  I’ll mark them as such in future blogs.


4.  “You didn’t build it” may end Obama’s dream of reelection

President Obama’s campaign scrambled to combat Republican efforts to highlight his “you didn’t build that” remark — a sign there are concerns the story could have legs far into the election cycle.
Team Obama released a new television ad late Tuesday with the president himself directly addressing the controversy. And the Democratic National Committee circulated a memo Wednesday detailing how it would respond to the GOP messaging. 

The actions indicate Democrats are concerned the remark could haunt the campaign, especially given the persistent GOP strikes at Obama’s handling of the economy. Republicans have repeatedly knocked the president for not understanding the private sector, and their attacks have been amplified by criticism from business leaders, who were unhappy with Obama’s comment.

“Obama did for Romney what Romney couldn’t do for himself, which is to create a clear contrast and unlock emotions on the key issue of the campaign,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “It helps Romney with independents, with GOPers and with white, working-class Democrats who needed an economic message that they could rally around.”…


Obama supporters keep telling everyone he was only talking about infrastructure, not the business itself.  But if that were the case wouldn’t he have said, “You didn’t build those”?

5.  Who is and isn’t paying their fair share?

This vehicle pays $12, 532 a year in vehicle and road taxes.

Has Elizabeth Warren ever driven behind this truck on her way to a Native American get together?  If she had, perhaps she would not say things such as "You built a factory out there. Good for you...you move your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for."

I suspect the factory owner would have an issue with that comment.  She moves on to the factory's use of utilities...as if the factory didn't pay for the hook ups and the service. She speaks of the police and fire department's availability as if the factory doesn't pay real estate taxes.

For Elizabeth, the glass isn't half full, it is over on its side. The factory is using its employees.  It is using the community.  It is using the infrastructure.  She fails to acknowledge the jobs created, the schools filled, the taxes paid, the ancillary businesses supporting the factory, the benefits of the created product to the community.  Who are people like Elizabeth Warren?  Where are their real world experiences?
Scott Brown's recent political advertisement underscores just how much these Warren and Obama 'democrats' are in stark contrast to yesterday's Democrats... 

The democrats like to say the Republican Party has changed.  They are correct.  It has become more conservative as has the country.  In the meantime, the Democratic Party has changed becoming more liberal unlike the country.  Who’s really out of touch? 

6.  This is what Fascism looks like

The anti-gay views openly espoused by the president of a fast food chain specializing in chicken sandwiches have run afoul of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a local alderman, who are determined to block Chick-fil-A from expanding in Chicago.

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,” Emanuel said Wednesday. 

“What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it’s not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope … is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO’s comments … reflects who we are as a city.”


What Rahm obviously believes is that if someone disagrees with him, he will suffer the consequences.  Perhaps Chic-fil-A supporters should wear a yellow star on their clothing? 



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